Witness in the Era of Mass Incarceration : Discovering the Ethical Prison.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (197 pages)
- The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture, and the Humanities Series .
- The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture, and the Humanities Series .
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Toward a Prison Poetics -- 2 Poetry, Pain, and Reconstructive Resistance -- 3 Three Studies in Testamentary Reconstruction -- 4 B(e)aring Bare Life: Ethnic American Prison Writing -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author.
This book places prison witness at the center of discussions of the human experience of law and order, and of the nature of the rights-bearing person. Readings of canonical and contemporary writers facing incarceration yield abiding literary tropes that chart the path from institutional abjection toward the minimal threshold of personhood.